


I Know

by EdmondZippo



Series: April in Paris [3]
Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, April in Paris, Ben is in boarding school, Car Accidents, Congresswoman Leia Organa, Crying, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Hospitals, Lando is a CEO, Leia cries, Luke is a Teacher, Men Crying, Parents Han and Leia, Race car driver Han Solo, everyone cries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:34:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26161210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdmondZippo/pseuds/EdmondZippo
Summary: After Han Solo crashes during the Dragon Void race, Leia finds herself in the hospital to look after him. It's time for her to say what she's been wanting him to hear for years.
Relationships: Ben Solo & Han Solo, Leia Organa & Ben Solo, Leia Organa & Han Solo, Leia Organa/Han Solo
Series: April in Paris [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832020
Kudos: 10





	I Know

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, welcome to the second one-shot in my April in Paris continuity. They just appear in my mind, so I have to write them. I hope you find value in them, that it gives useful background to the main story.

_Hey, it’s me!_ These words very well could have been the last he’d ever said to her. And what strange words they were. They were not the usual words. She usually asked him to be careful, to which he always replied that he would. Then, one or the other would say _I love you_ , to which one or the other replied _I know_. Ever since the last time this had happened, this had been their thing. Earlier today, when she had asked him, as always, to be careful, he had said _hey, it’s me!_ Who said that? Leia had been so stumped by the strangeness of his words that she hadn’t said _I love you_. And neither had he.

Leia was a small woman. Only one inch over five feet. He was a full foot taller, so she always looked up at him. Now, however, she was looking down at her husband, for Han Solo was laying on a hospital bed.

“Han,” she called softly yet sternly, pleadingly, yet with the natural authority that so often made him hear the voice of reason. “Han, can you hear me?”

He could not. He was profoundly asleep. She knew that. She just wanted to try. People were seventy percent water, so Han was averaging thirty to thirty five percent morphine, all thanks to Dr. Kalonia. His face being more blood red than anything else did little to change the fact that he was a beautiful sleeper, something he had passed on to their son and that she was very jealous of. The morphine and the other hundreds of drugs he had been put on sure had worked on his traits’ level of relaxation, but he still looked like Han. _Her_ Han. Apart from that, he had a broken arm, a broken leg and a few broken ribs. Leia wondered if it somehow made things easier that these wounds were all on the same side. For a few months, he would just have the right side of his body to work with. Would it…? Eh, she’d ask the doctor. Never having broken or even sprained anything in her whole life, she was genuinely curious.

“Good evening, Congresswoman.”

She lifted her head. Dr. Kalonia had just come in. How had she not heard the door open? Had she retreated that far into her own mind that sound had stopped registering? She rubbed a sleepy eye and saluted the doctor. The brown-haired woman gave her a gentle, reassuring smile, and asked how she was. Leia was fine, considering. Kalonia made a noise. She checked Han’s vitals and did her other doctor-y things.

“He’s a lucky man,” she said reflectively before looking right at Leia. “On many fronts.”

“I guess he is, Doctor,” Leia replied in a voice strained by emotion.

Kalonia left the room, leaving Leia to her thoughts. She looked down at her hands. They were white at the joints. She opened the left one and looked at Han’s golden dice.

“Lucky…”

He had forgotten them. Leia had never been a superstitious woman. But this… She looked at him again. Still asleep. She figured that she could leave him alone for a few minutes. The smell of the room was starting to upset her. She needed fresh air. And coffee.

The machine looked like some of the nurses she had seen: tired, overworked, and on its last leg. The coffee she received smelled bad and tasted even worse, but it was coffee. It would do the thing. It had to.

“Well, hello, what have we here?” the smoothest voice in the world crooned on her left. She smiled before turning her head. This greeting never got old, however long it had been since the first time.

“Lando,” she said. He walked towards her, aided by a cane. That was new. He noticed her look.

“Brand new,” he declared proudly. “I find that as I grow older, I need more and more stylish accessories. Plus, my leg has started to misbehave. It’s way too early for a man like me, but what can one do?”

They hugged. He smelled great, as always. She took a well-earned respite in his arms, before letting go of him. Lando inquired about Han. She went through her memory to find what Kalonia had told her earlier. He sighed and nodded, all the while looking intently at her. She avoided his eyes for fear of breaking down in tears if she let herself be touched by the concern that she knew he was expressing. Instead, she turned around and walked back to Han’s room.

They stood on each side of the bed. Leia was on the left side, the window side. Lando had both his hands on his cane. His greying moustache looked as sad as the rest of him. Leia sat down, feeling that her legs could not support her for much longer. Her eyes fell to her knees, as did the silence. Pretty soon, Lando sat, too. When the silence got too heavy, Leia opened her mouth again.

“How’s Kaasha?”

Her question seemed to take him out of some reverie. “Oh, better. Much better. Thank you.” He smiled and nodded energetically. She understood that that was that. Leia then asked about business. Booming, he answered. People liked their gadgets. They chuckled, and then each one went back into their own thoughts. Several minutes passed during which only regular bips and hums were heard. Leia would look up at her husband, now and then, but she knew that nothing would change in such a short time.

“What about Ben? How is the little man? Does he know?”

Leia swallowed. “He’s with Luke. They’re on a plane, on their way here. Or they will be soon. I’m not quite sure.”

“Hm.”

Leia had briefly spoken to her son, and only to tell him that his father was alive and on his long, long way to be well. The young man’s distress and anguish had added to her own, and both had been deeply felt on the phone. She had had to put an end to the call, though, because tears had been threatening to break the dam of her eyes. Leia had to be strong, for everyone, but especially for Ben. Ben loved his father, looked up to him, and clumsy as Han may be, he loved his son just the same. Leia being strong was the way it had always gone. She carried people. Even after she’d met Han, after they’d been together long enough to allow herself to be, at times, carried by him, that part of her had remained. She was the caretaker.

“Hey, there, old buddy…” Lando whispered.

Leia’s eyes shot up. He was awake. She got up and stepped closer to him. Han was looking right, at his friend.

“Leia…” he croaked weakly.

“Look over there, my friend,” Lando smiled as he pointed to Leia. Han’s head turned, slowly. When he saw her, their eyes connected, and the dam broke. Lando silently got up and left the room.

“I hate you,” she articulated when they were alone.

“I’m… sorry, princess,” he tried to smile, but it was too painful. He gave up, and his lips fell. His eyes were shiny, too. Tears were welling up in Han Solo’s hazel eyes. His lips quivered, and then he, too, started crying.

“I’m sorry,” he said, again and again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I’m sorry.”

The words were muddled by the sobs he could not control. Leia got even closer and shushed him, told him to calm down, to settle down, that it was alright. It was alright. She walked around the bed, and, with infinite precautions, she sat next to him to cradle his head, gently caressing his greying hair. He lifted his right hand to touch her, and she relished in his touch. He was still here. That was all that mattered. She brought that hand to her lips, gently kissed it, and then she rubbed it against her cheek. When he had settled down, he squeezed Leia’s hand. She put it down.

“Kiss me before… before I go back to… sleep,” he demanded. She gave a little laugh and brought her head down to his and gave him a kiss in which she put everything that she felt: her love, her fear, her joy, her anger, her gratitude, and much more. When she withdrew herself from him, she saw that he had closed his eyes and that he was smiling that cocky smile that hadn’t changed in over fifteen years that they’d know each other.

“Luckiest guy… in the world,” he whispered before drifting back into his morphine induced rest.

That he was, she thought. That he was. She looked at him for a long minute before leaving the room again.

In the corridor, Lando was animatedly talking on the phone. He lifted a hand when he saw her, as if to say that it wouldn’t be too long. Leia nodded and sat on a chair. She, too, would need to get on the phone at some point. There was an important vote coming up in the Chamber of Representatives, and she needed Korr, her assistant, to work on some last-minute details. She could also ask Amilyn to dispatch some of her people to help. Yes, she could do that. Mon, as the senior Congressmember of their coalition, would lead the charge, but Leia needed to be right there by her side and well prepared. This was her first term since Ben’s birth. She had wanted this for a long, long time. She was finally following in her parents’ footsteps, so she could not trip and fall. Not now.

Lando’s cane brought her back to the present. He grunted as he sat down next to her, cursing his leg.

“Good news?” she asked to think about something else.

“Not really, but nothing that Lobot can’t deal with on his own,” he said in a sigh. “Something about the stock market being in bad shape and… Whatever. It’ll be fine. He’ll manage that tomorrow morning.” He chuckled. “You know, sometimes I think that he should be CEO and not me. He’s got a once-in-a-generation practical mind. Almost robotic if you ask me. But then, the company head would have no style, and that, well… that I just can’t allow.”

That got an honest laugh out of her. After seeing that she was still laughing ten seconds later, Lando fell in stride and started laughing, too. They both knew that what he’d just said wasn’t _that_ funny, but it was funny enough to allow them, and especially Leia, to release some of the tenison that filled her. Her jaw started to hurt, as did her stomach, and she laughed and laughed, leaning back and forth to try to catch her breath, but it wouldn’t stop. Lando’s laugh was coming to an end, but hers was still going, going, and going, until it turned into crying, and then the atmosphere changed again.

“Hey, hey, come on,” Lando consoled her. “It’s okay, Leia, it’s okay.” His arm went around her small shoulders and brought her close to him. “He’s going to be okay. You’ve seen him. He’s okay. Come on. Here. Shh. It’s okay, Leia… It’s okay.”

The crying lasted much longer than the laughing. All her stress came out. All her fear. It was too much to be kept inside. It was years of worrying that something like this would happen again. It was arguments that lasted for months on end, crises in their couple that threatened their marriage, accusations of not letting him do the only thing he was good at, the only way for him to feel alive out of this damn house that he’d agreed to live in for her, he did so much for her, compromised everywhere for her. It was her hearing this hypocrisy and stopping herself from saying the worst thing that came to mind, instead trying to articulate that he was never here, that she had to do everything, including raising their son. It was her sobbing but saying that she, too, had something she wanted to do, something that connected her to her parents, which he obviously couldn’t understand, something that she’d had to give up for _him_ , for Ben, because that’s what she always did, put other people before her. It was them staring at each other in fury, him pointing his finger at her and spitting venom that she knew he regretted instantly. It was him running away and slamming the door, it was the Millenium’s engine roaring into the night, taking him to a place he might never return from. It was her staring into the dark and sitting in a chair, crying, only to cry so much that she would fall asleep, exhausted. It was her waking up, startled by him coming home at the break of dawn and stinking of booze. It was the two of them looking at each other wordlessly, wanting to say _I love you more than life itself_ but holding back because… because what?

“Do you want me to take you home?” Lando asked her softly when she had quieted down. “I have a car waiting.”

She nodded. They got up and he proposed an arm to her, but she gently refused.

“What a gentleman you’ve become, Lando Calrissian.”

“I’ve always been a gentleman,” he reproached her in a dazzling smile under tired eyes. “It ain’t my fault you’re only now noticing the way my mama raised her son.”

On their way out, Leia instructed a nurse to call her immediately if anything changed. They were always going to do exactly that but asking the woman herself one more time gave her a sense of control over the situation that she so far felt she had lacked. When they walked out, Leia took a deep breath. How good it felt to breathe the night air! How good it felt to breathe at all. People, including herself, took so much for granted. She assumed that Lando had told his driver they were coming out because he pulled over at the exact time they reached the end of the curb. He helped her climb in and she settled thankfully on the soft fabric of the seat. Lando gave the address, and they drove away.

He had to wake her up when they arrived. She heard his voice from afar, and she felt his gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Will you be okay?” he asked her as she got out of the car.

“Yes,” she managed to get out of the haze in her mind. “Yes, don’t worry about me. What about you? You can sleep here if you want to.”

“No, I don’t want to trouble you. I have a room in town. I mean, I think I do.” He asked his driver. The driver replied that he did. “Even if I didn’t,” he resumed with the last smile of the night, “there’s always a room somewhere for Lando Calrissian.” He winked at her and wished her goodnight before rolling the window back up and disappearing.

Leia entered her house alone. Refusing to turn on the lights because she didn’t want to see the emptiness of it, she walked slowly between the furniture with her hands before her. She guessed the stairs a few feet in front of her and climbed up to the first floor and down the corridor to her room. Their room. She took off her shoes and her clothes and stood in front of her bed. Turning back toward the door, she turned the light on. She then went to his dressing, opened it, browsed his clothes, and selected an old t-shirt of his, one that he refused to throw away _because I like this one, Leia, that’s why_. She put it on and searched for his smell as she went to bed. She sought to fill the space he usually occupied in it, put her head on his pillow, inhaled through her nose, filled it with him. And then she cried again, but silently. When she had no more tears, she fell asleep.

The new day brought faint voices and breakfast smells. Leia opened her eyes and wondered what was going on. Then she remembered. _Han_. She groaned as she got up and out of bed to walk to her dressing gown. As she made her way down, the voices grew clearer. The first one belonged to Luke, her formerly estranged twin brother. He was talking about something spiritual, as he did when he felt like it could do some good. The other was Ben’s. She turned the corner and walked in the kitchen.

“Leia,” Luke called as he walked to her. He gave her a powerful hug and a kiss on her forehead before stepping aside. Young Ben was next, his ears coming out from under his mid-length hair. As they hugged, she heard him protest her touching them but paid it no mind. She touched his ears that Han and her jokingly accused each other of giving him, his hair that took from hers. When they pulled away from each other, she ran a finger up and down the nose that definitely was a variation on his father’s. His dark eyes took from them both, but the lips that stretched in a sad smile, they were hers. As for the height, it clearly was neither of them.

“Mom…” Ben began.

“He’s okay,” she reassured him immediately. “He’s okay.” They hugged again, and Leia relished in the warmth and proximity of her flesh and blood. “I’m glad to see you, kid,” she added, using one of Han’s favorite words. “You want to go and see him?” Ben nodded. “Can I have breakfast first?” He laughed like someone who hadn’t breathed in a minute. It sounded like life itself.

An hour later, Lando picked them all up in a different car than the day before. He and Luke engaged in a friendly chat about kids and their phones while Leia and Ben caught up. Boarding school seemed to agree with him, as Luke (who was among his teachers) had told her one night when they had spent several hours talking. She could say the same for the west coast weather. He talked animatedly when she asked him a question about his art but always fell back into silence once he was done. Her son, ever the quiet one. She always had to fish for an information or a feeling, for he wasn’t ever going to offer it on his own.

Ben’s walk was brisk and hurried when they got out of the car. He waited for them at the desk where he asked for his father’s room number, and then at the elevator where an old woman and a younger one who looked very much like her had joined him. The strangers got off on the second floor, and Leia’s group on the third. Ben waited for them again in front of the door.

“Maybe you should go see your father first,” Luke offered. “I’ll wait here and keep Lando company.”

Ben nodded and looked at his mother. “Will you come with me?” he asked.

“Only if you want me to,” Leia answered. Ben nodded again.

He opened the door as if he feared it would break. He was so gentle. She followed him inside the room, where Han Solo was busy watching TV, a small remote in his hand.

“Hey, kid!” he exclaimed weakly. He turned the TV off and threw the remote as far as his injured hand allowed him.

“Hey, dad,” Ben managed to say. Leia knew that he was already overwhelmed, and she also knew that he would fight it. Ben sat where Lando had the night before, so Leia went to her chair.

“Look at me,” Han said before laughing, then coughing, then wheezing. “Ouch! It shouldn’t hurt that… much. I’m… practically made of morphine by now…”

Ben chuckled, but the lines of his face quickly went back to worry and the verge of tears.

“I, uh, I forgot my… my dice,” his father went on carefully. “Only reason I crashed. You know your old man… right? Never crashes. Unless… unless it’s intentional.” He managed a smile that Ben mirrored, but Leia knew better. His lips were moving. She guessed that he was grinding his teeth, fighting the inevitable. The real tell was his eyes. The tears had been welling up for the past minute. “How are you?” Han asked.

“I’m okay, dad,” Ben sobbed. “I’m okay.”

Han looked to her, briefly. “Oh, yeah?” his broken voice answered. “You having fun out there?”

Ben made an affirmative noise, unable to articulate a simple yes. The tears were now streaming down his red face. Leia’s heart broke. She remained silent.

“You made… You got friends?”

Another noise.

“And Luke… is he nice to you?” Han was simply ignoring his own tears. He just tried to have a conversation with his son. It had been so long.

“Yeah, he’s great.”

“Great!”

Great indeed! Ben pulled his chair closer to his father’s bed.

“You, uh… You want to hug your old man?”

Ben practically threw himself on his father. And that was when Leia lost it. She sobbed uncontrollably. They all did. It lasted as long as it needed to. All the things that had been left unsaid the years before were now coming out and being acknowledged, understood, forgiven. The love they all felt for each other cleansed them of their resentment, their grudges, their regrets. They were alive, after all. They had been granted another day together.

“Oh, man,” Han said when his son pulled away from him. “It hurt like hell but…I really needed it.”

And the Solo family had a good laugh.

Later that day, after Luke had spoken to him, after they had a nice lunch in a nearby restaurant ( _hey, try to sneak me something nice in here, will ya? The food here is terrible._ ) the five of them spent quality time together until finally a nurse came in the room and declared that there was too many of them, that Han needed to rest, that they needed to leave him alone. They took a walk in the park that neighbored the hospital. Before going home, however, Leia told the others that she needed to have a conversation with her husband. She used that exact word, which told the others that they would be waiting for her outside. Or in the car. This was important.

She made her way to his room, full of apprehension. These words had been running in her brain for years, had been waiting to be said, and at last, their time had come. She knocked softly on the wooden door and listened for an answer. There was none, but she went in anyway. Leia stood at the foot of the bed. He was asleep. She took a moment to look at him. Would her parents, if they had lived, have approved of him? How different would her life have been if she had chosen someone else? _If I had, I wouldn’t have Ben_. And she wouldn’t have him. That was part of it, too. As tough as it had been, she wouldn’t trade her life for anything. Or maybe world peace. But no less. A tired smile graced her face, so she took her place back in her chair. And that’s when she noticed it. His eyes were closed, but his face wasn’t quite right.

“Han,” she called. He didn’t move, didn’t answer. “Han, come on, I need to talk to you.”

“Can’t a man get some sleep?” he asked with a wry smile that did not work this time.

“You’ll get plenty when I leave.”

He sighed and looked at the ceiling. “Alright. What can I do for you, your ladyship?”

“You know what I want from you,” she replied.

He looked at her, then away, at the wall.

“You could have died,” she continued, her eyes fixed on his face.

He said nothing.

“Han, look at me.”

He couldn’t have made his reluctance more visible if he’d tried. His face was hard, his eyes dark as the night. “I’m nothing without it, Leia.”

“No,” she countered. How could he be so thick, after all this time? “You’re wrong. You’re my husband. You’re Ben’s father. You already have everything: the records, the medals, the trophies, the respect, the admiration, the love. You have everything you ever wanted. It’s time to let go.”

Han looked away again.

“I’ve given you so much time,” Leia said, leaning close to him. Now that she was saying the words, the emotion was creeping in. “So much time. There’s so much I wanted to have done by this time, yet I put it all away. For you, but especially for Ben, because I didn’t want him to grow up alone. But that’s exactly what he did. I sent him away, Han. My son, our son. I just couldn’t do it anymore. And I blame you for it.”

This brought his eyes back to her. “Leia, that’s not fair…”

“Isn’t it?”

He said nothing, just ground his teeth like Ben.

“I want to live, too. I have ambition. I want to change things. I want to change _the world_. And so far, you’ve kept me from doing what I wanted.”

“I never kept you…” he tried to say.

“Yes, you did!” she accused him. “Yes, you did! If you’re not home, if I’m not home, then who is? My parents are dead, my brother doesn’t live here. You barely see your best friend! Apart from him, you have no one! Who’s supposed to look after Ben?”

She paused as if she awaited an answer. Han was smart enough not to try and provide one.

“I sent him away because there was no other solution. Because I didn’t see any. Because you didn’t offer me any. This ends today.”

His messy face didn’t move, just looked at her. Only his eyes were expressive. He understood what she was saying. He’d always known what she was saying.

“Han, you could have died. You could have died last time, too.” She stood up and towered above him. “I’m telling you now, Solo. There will not be a third time. If you get back in a car and race again, I won’t be there when you come home.”

Leia saw on his face that he believed her, yet she went on. She wasn’t done yet. Just like he’d done to her many times, she pointed her finger at him.

“You _will_ attend his graduation. You _will_ drive the car that will take him to college. You _will_ be there at his wedding. You _will_ hold your grandchild in your arms. You _will_ grow old with me, Han Solo, or as God is my witness, I will kill you!”

The tears were back. There was so much coming out of her that she had renounced even trying to control anything but her words.

“That last part doesn’t make any–”

“I know that it doesn’t make any sense! It’s not the point, damn it!”

She saw that he was smiling. “I got you, your worshipfulness.” A sob escaped her. She moved to sit back in her chair, but he interrupted her, gestured for her to sit on the bed. She did. “No, no, on the other side.” She sighed and walked around the bed. When she sat again, he caught her wrist in his almost valid hand. They sat there in silence for a moment. His eyes were on her arm, his thumb running up and down. She could hear the gears turning in his brain. Finally, he spoke:

“I’m nothing without you,” he declared.

“I know,” she replied simply, honestly.

“Hey!”

“Hey, yourself, scoundrel,” she smiled. There was a pause.

“You think he’s going to give us grandkids? He doesn’t quite have my…”

“Yes, he will,” she interrupted him. She just knew he would. One day.

“Okay, okay…”

Another pause. His hand was still on her.

“All these years and I’m still trying to figure out why you even like me,” he said.

“I know. Me, too.”

He tried to give her his trademark _oh, come on_ face, but it was far from capable of it. He winced.

“I’ll quit racing.”

“I know.”

“I’ll be better with Ben.”

“I know.”

“I’ll be better with you.”

“I know.”

He tightened his grip on her wrist.

“Come over here, baby.”

She leaned down toward him. She could feel his breath.

“I love you,” he said.

Leia kissed her husband.

“I know.”


End file.
